Who Makes the Best Ribs in Jersey? And Where in Jersey Do You Find Them….North, Central, or South Jersey? [POLL]

Back when I was a country DJ, we used to do something called “the Rossi roundtable”, where a bunch of contestants would win a chance to sit with me and other contestants eating ribs at the Colorado Café in Watchung.

Phoenominal ribs. Meat that would just fall off the bone right into your mouth.

So with that in mind, and knowing how any good rib cook worth his salt would feel about his (or her) ribs; where in Jersey do you find the best ones; and in which part: North, Central, or South Jersey?

According to this:
Dewey Johnson has made old-fashioned pit-cooked pork ribs for 62 of his 77 years.
“I had to do it, I was the oldest boy in the family,” he says of his clan, which held reunions where 100 to 150 people turned out to eat kettle-fried fish and barbecued chicken.

But most of all the family came out to eat racks and racks of ribs.

He’s been at it professionally for the past 17 years at his on-the-way-to-the-shore location, Uncle Dewey’s Outdoor BBQ Pavilion in Mizpah, at mile marker 40 on Route 40.

A retired textile workers union official, he grew up right next door to where he built his “retirement” business.

His pit can handle 96 slabs at a time and still have room for cooking the rest of his menu.

Henri, who gave cooking a shot after retiring from a career in law enforcement in Florida said…“My father loved doing ribs and I liked hanging out in the kitchen with my mom and grandmom,” Cooking had started as a hobby, morphed into catering and soon became a restaurant.

Johnson and Henri are willing to share cooking tips — up to a point — but neither wants to disclose the details of his sauces.

Johnson makes his own barbecue sauces in two styles — one sweet and one based on vinegar — 25 gallons at a time, from mostly fresh ingredients. Each batch takes about half a day to concoct and, given his time investment, he’s holding tight to those formulations.

Henri also makes two sauces, one sweet — “That’s what everyone wants” — and the other a vinegar-based sauce that isn’t as popular, except among folks avoiding gluten.

But here’s the thing: The sauce is secondary, applied at the end, after both men’s ribs are finished and off the fire. So it’s easy to either buy or concoct your own sauce to suit your own tastes.

I was always told that the rub’s the thing, followed by how you barbeque them and the type of charcoal you use.

I remember there was this place somewhere down around Atco where some friends of mine at the time took my wife and I to, which they swore made the best ribs in Jersey.

AP VIDEOS

Welcome back to New Jersey Insiders

It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on .
To keep your personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you.
To activate your account, please confirm your password.
When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.

*Please note that your prizes and activities will not be shared between programs within our VIP network.

Welcome back to New Jersey Insiders

It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing VIP profile. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://nj1015.com using your original account information.